First Things First

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Published on November 20, 2008

The former Building 11b/c and future Ruin Court

Last November, the City of Toronto hired The Cannington Group to remediate the buildings. This essentially means removing contaminants and making it safe. Now, they are back on-site performing selective demolition to parts of the buildings that are in very poor condition and too unsafe to restore.

The first building they are working on is also the one in the most disrepair. Building 11b/c is in such bad shape it does not have heritage designation from the Ontario Heritage Trust, as most of the other buildings do.

Cannington’s Yogi Seuss

When it was built around 1912, Building 11b/c was used to store sand lime. Most recently it was used to store equipment. As Cannington Supervisor Yogi Seuss and his crew of 10 people explore their areas of work, they are finding old machinery, some of which is in surprisingly good condition. For example, they found propellers on motors that can still spin even though they are over 75 years old and have been exposed to the elements all these years. Items like these will be salvaged and displayed in areas including this one which we’ll call Ruin Court when we open in 2010. Overall, this space will be a route that links the outdoor Welcome Court with the indoor Welcome Centre in Building 12.

Aside from the selective cutting, Cannington is also doing some structural stabilization, brick repair, including mortar re-pointing and resetting.